Actually, the greatest pirate of all time, Ching Shih, protected the towns she forced to pay tribute, had a strict code of honor among her large cadre of pirate brethren, and put those that abused the innocent to the sword.

Yes but the authority back then basically did the same things that you described. So dashgamer here, used the word "actually" because it was ironic that a pirate was doing good things.
Correct me if I'm wrong.